Re:I agree with the other posters
on
USB 'Dead Drops'
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· Score: 1
An "artist" once got a government grant for photographing a cross in a jar of urine.
You are referring to Piss Christ. It was actually a very striking image, even if you didn't know the story of the piece. It generated a lot of public debate on the nature of art, religion and censorship. It was of such public interest that it was exhibited in galleries all around the world.
By all the criteria listed above, it was a highly successful work of art. I don't think the USB idea is in the same category. It is one of those art pieces that is a social experiment rather than a pretty picture. While it might get some attention in art circles, it is more likely to be used/abused by the technology crowd who are not really known for thinking outside the box.
So if he'd used a megaphone and said to their faces they wouldn't have been able to charge him?
No, they would just charge him under a different law, such as disturbing the peace. They have thousands of laws, so in most cases the police can find something with which to charge you if they put their minds to it.
...it's just another example of how free-speech laws have diverged from today's technology.
How do you figure that? He was successfully convicted under the current laws when using new technology. It seems to me that the law coped quite happily with new technology. Your problem appears to be if he had used old technology.
I very much doubt that the Greens will vote for this. The Liberal/National coalition will support the idea, but will be compelled to vote against it just to annoy the Labor government (although once it gets publicly linked to those kiddy-porn loving, WMD-owning, union-member, terrorist boat-people then that might give the Coalition the excuse to vote for it).
MS pretty much did very little consumer computing.
What about Windows 95 & 98? They were the operating systems targeted towards consumers while business was given Windows NT. Microsoft also did software like Microsoft Money (which was not a business tool), Microsoft Works, and Encarta encyclopedia. And don't forget Microsoft Bob! Or maybe we should forget this.
You know how lots of people keep claiming that PC gaming is dying? Well, that is because PC gaming used to be huge. I maintain that the single reason why PCs had such phenomenal success in the gaming markets during the 90s and early 00s was Microsoft's DirectX, which standardized the APIs to eliminate the need for different versions of games made for different graphics cards (like 3DFX or TNT cards). It simplified the crappy setups that had to be done for each soundcard and made it easier to make new gaming devices like joysticks, steering wheels etc. The success they had with this lead to Microsoft's Games for Windows branding that encouraged ease of install and minimum feature set.
Microsoft always had their eye on the consumer market.
Microsoft's problem was they wanted to keep the same Windows user interface on their Tablets (which was too fiddly) and they used the pen for input. Writing into computers never took the public's imagination. I prefer it though. My old PalmPilot was an amazing superior device for entering text than my iPhone. It was faster, more accurate and you could write large amounts of text without having to look at the screen. And it didn't take up most of the screen like the iPhone.
Oops, I have got sidetracked walking down memory lane.
Why would anyone ever need to carry a laptop AND a tablet?
I would imagine that the tablet would get used mostly as an ebook reader so their can carry all their textbooks in one unit. Students will be handwriting less as they type all their work onto their computers, thus replacing their notebooks. It really doesn't seem that difficult to imagine that they would want to have their textbook and notebook on their desks at the same time.
If it wasn't useful to be able to see two displays at once, then we wouldn't have computers that support multiple monitors. This is just the same thing in a portable form.
I was initially against the idea of kids having to lug around laptop computers (especially the early adopter schools who did it before small netbooks). However, when I think back to my school days, and how heavy my bag was when I carried all my textbooks around then it seems that tablets and netbooks would be a much lighter alternative.
I wonder if people using the term "deniers" will ever stop setting up strawman and accept that people are questioning the causes of climate change, not whether the climate actually changes. Someone can criticise AGW theories without also saying that the world is ever unchanging and will always be so.
Oh my god, you are still going on about the term "deniers". Move on! Now I think about it, I don't think I have ever seen you write a post that actually criticises the AGW science. You always seem to be going on about how skeptics are not deniers. Interesting.
There are plenty of people out there who do deny global warming. To find an example, the first place that I look is the right wing columnist of some influence here in Australia. Was I surprised that his latest blog on this topic has moved from his usual line of "the earth is cooling" to "it's to expensive to stop it" arguments. Maybe he is warming to the idea that it is warming.
In any case, have a look at his followers on that blog entry. You cannot deny that they are denying global warming.
Well, since we've established that the "rumor" about optionally-installed frameworks is NOT a rumor, what the fuck else would I have been talking about, except his *speculation* and unsubstantiated 'what-if's' which he was clearly hoping to astroturf with?
No, we didn't establish that it wasn't a rumor, I did and only AFTER you submitted your post. You only claimed to have read the developer docs AFTER I posted a link to it. You used the same terminology as the OP but later claimed that it referred to part if the post where it really didn't apply.
Finally you refer to Mr Coward's unsubstantiated claims but you have not backed up your claims either. Metamatic asked for the source that shows Apple comments on this matter. You claim the the OP was an astroturfer, but you seem hell bent on doing everything you can to quell any speculation on Apple's direction for the Mac.
My contention is that this is a first step towards a final outcome. Your argument is that it can't be that because it is currently not like the final outcome. You claim I ignore the other avenues of installing software and the anti trust regulation of blocking software from outside the app store, but the scenario I posted explicitly says how they can gradually change their system to avoid anti trust laws. And to quell customer outrage, Apple can always rely on people like you.
how long until Mac OS users find themselves in that same "walled garden"?
Oh, please! Your full sentence was "Care to identify a source for this rumor, or are you just making shit up as you go?". The original poster started with "Rumor has it that the new Mac OS App Store forbids relying on optionally-installed frameworks".
Are you really saying that within one sentence you went from asking about the original poster's opening phrase to his final question/speculation? If so, you were linking two separate things together as if they were one concept.
You can't really expect us to believe this, or are you not wearing pants right now?
We could take a hint from Apple themselves, who have said that it's "one" way of getting software on the Mac.
Apple would never admit to any long term strategy, even if it were not controversial. There would be antitrust problems if Apple tried to ban certain software from their OS. However, they can implement an app store and then only allow access to some new features of their OS to apps from their store. Then they can make the app store the most obvious way to search for software. Eventually, software that was not aquired from the app store will be deemed to be legacy software and for security reasons there will be more restrictions placed on it. They could set up a application approval process so boxed software could be certified to allow it to act like it came from the app store.
So am I "making shit up"? Absolutely! This is all speculation based on the way all companies are beginning to move with their software. Operating systems, applications and games are all becoming locked down vehicles for selling downloadable content and online services. It is the way of the future, and the only way to make it work is to remove the openness that we have enjoyed in the past.
So the app store will be filled with high quality apps designed for the exclusively for the mac and this bad how? Cross part form apps are a joke.
Ah yes. The old "I don't want it so it should be banned" argument.
It is true that some cross platform and ported programs can be bad because they don't follow the user interface of the platform on which they are currently running. This isn't resticted to what we are discussing here, but includes apps on the Mac that contain Windowisms (where is the menu supposed to go again?), Windows software with Macisms (Apple themselves are the worst at this), and PC games that have a console gaming interface (what, no mouse support?). And then there are the Java apps that don't look right on ANY platform!
However, there are also some cross platform and ported software that DO get it right. And better features trumps a dodgy user interface too. I don't care if you want to avoid these applications, just don't deny other people the right to use the software that they want. If you want to keep up user interface standards in the app store, then do that. But blanket bans on Java and Flash programs are not about that, because it is possible that you can write software using those systems that look like Mac apps.
Why as a user would I care about cross platform? I use one computer.
I didn't realise that the new app store was being written just for you. How selfish can you be?
So let's put it this way. The less reliance you have on single platform applications, the more choice you have next time you want to buy a new computer. It gives you a way to change platforms in a piecemeal fashion.
Cross platform is just developer speak for I'm lazy.
You know it takes more work to do this properly than just to target one platform.
Huh? If you had seen the guidelines then why did you accuse the Anonymous Coward of "making shit up" about the optionally-installed frameworks?
Nothing says you can't include your own interpreters in your app bundle
Impractical for Java, but possible for Flash. It does dissuade developers from going down that path though. And Apple have a history of changing the rules for their app stores. I wouldn't put it past them to put a blanket ban on any Flash application in the future.
Does anybody actually use the flash browser plugin to build desktop applications?
I have seen it used for games and installers for some Windows software. I don't do gaming on the Mac, so I don't know if it gets used there. I have done it on Windows and not realised a game was written using Flash at the beginning. They don't have to sit in browser windows.
Nothing precludes you from installing java, flash, and your own app via means other than the app store. If you want to work outside the guidelines, then you lose a distribution channel, and that is all.
That is correct for now. Who knows how much more the OS will get locked down. Also, look at the iPhone. How popular are the apps that aren't available in the app store?
First, an Australian wouldn't call the car involved an SUV, but rather a 4WD (4 wheel drive).
Secondly, it doesn't seem like an amazing story. They saw some spectators were in the way, so they tried to quickly move it all and they had problems doing this. The only real concerns that I had with the operation was lack of direction given to the spectators as to where they should go to stay out of harm's way and the campaign manager not being organised enough to know the emergency services number in Australia. No, it is not 911. It is also not what they said it was in the NASA report "0". It is in fact 000 or 112 if you are using a mobile (cell) phone.
Finally, what is with the trolling in the summary about video evidence being destroyed. That has nothing to do with this story.
So every app that is downloaded from the App store is guaranteed to run on an out of the box mac or a clean install of the OS and this is a bad thing?
That is not the reason for doing this, because until the recent policy changes to Java and Flash on the Mac, applications written using either of those technologies would have worked on a clean install of the OS. If Apple were so worried about it then they didn't need to remove them from the base install.
The real reason is to remove cross platform programs from the App Store. This is helpful for two reasons. It keeps a consistent user interface for applications on the App Store and it differentiates the programs on the Mac compared to other platforms. If most of the programs were just Linux ports then why not just use Linux on cheaper hardware. Apple want to lock both users and developers into their platform.
In the past, a company who wanted to get that sort of lock-in had to embrace, extend and extinguish. Now they just funnel the applications through their distribution method to have control over what can be run on their platforms.
(Replying to self) I see now that the half hour difference noted was due to PAL/NTSC differences. See the VHS tape length table. I also see that there is a difference between the definition of the tape speeds (SP/LP/EP) between PAL and NTSC. How confusing!
I have a stack of VHS tapes sitting behind me now (I am going to transfer some of them to DVD). Most of them are 4 hour tapes, but some of them are 5 hours in length (300 minutes). The 10.5 hours would be using the EP mode to double the length. Maybe they had 15 minutes extra tape to give it the extra 30 minutes to which the GP referred. I've never timed one to see.
However, when the VHS/Beta wars first started Beta could do 60 minutes while VHS recorded 120 minutes. They both kept improving, but VHS always had the superior length (due to the larger cassette size). I believe that the 300 minute tapes appeared long after Beta was dead and buried. The Beta format had superior picture quality at the start, but that was sacrificed to extend the length of their tapes, so they were pretty even once video recorder sales had skyrocketed.
The other major factor in the widespread adoption of VHS was that JVC licenced the format to other manufacturers sooner and for less money than Sony. I remember when I first saw a non-Sony branded Beta recorder. I thought at the time that they were way too late to be doing that.
And yet you can happily install Windows on an Intel based Mac but not the other way around (without jumping through hoops). The fact that you could see some of the source code didn't help there. And it won't stop Apple from restricting applications to a limited feature set of the OS (if they didn't get installed by their app store).
Apple has had restrictions on what you could do with their OS from the beginning. This new step just expands the restrictions. That is why I replied to you originally. Just because one part of the system is open, doesn't mean the entire OS is open. The kernel might be open source, but when the kernel is locked inside a walled garden then it makes no difference.
Hard to believe everyone's buying the troll. OS X has an open-sourced kernel.
Wow! So you mean I can install it on my PC and run any Mac application? Oh, apparently not. According to wikipedia "Darwin does not include many of the defining elements of Mac OS X, such as the Carbon and Cocoa APIs or the Quartz Compositor and Aqua user interface, and thus cannot run Mac applications."
Further on, it says that "the Darwine project is a port of Wine that allows one to run Microsoft Windows software on Darwin". So this open source kernel of which you speak can run Windows applications, but not OS X applications. I think the original poster's comments still stand.
It was incompatible (they didn't support Java Native Interfaces and Remote Method Invocation), but it certainly wasn't awful. It was one of the fastest Java implementations at the time.
I'm old enough to remember when Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Access, Publisher, Project, Visio, and whatever else MS is bundling these days as "Office" were simply separate products, which anyone could buy individually.
You still can buy them separately. I was just looking at a pricelist earlier today that showed Word, Excel, Outlook and Access as individual items. If you wanted more than one product then you were much better off buying the cheapest Office package.
Unfortunately, it wasn't until later that OSX proved that breaking away from that legacy and using virtualization as a transition mechanism could work, as computers are sufficiently powerful, these days, to make that an option.
Apple wasn't the first to do this. Microsoft used Virtual DOS Machine for DOS under Windows (including Soundblaster emulation), Windows on Windows for 16 bit Win 3.x apps under 32 bit Windows, and WOW64 for 32 bit apps under 64 bit Windows.
They also had subsystems for POSIX and OS/2 executables. All this (except WOW64) dates back to 1993. These days, the only legacy subsystem in use in the 64 bit version of Windows is WOW64.
Here's the thing about making lots of money...you don't do it accidentally. It is impossible to do so without a lot of drive, a lot of work, and a lot of moral flexibility. Hell, even if you win the lottery, it turns out 80% of lottery winners end up filing for bankruptcy
I disagree that you can't do it accidentally. You still can't discount the idea that he made the system just for use by his fellow Harvard students, and only once it became popular did he realise that he might have stumbled onto a winner. None of us other than the people involved at the time can really say for sure.
But I have no argument with you when you say he is a fucker!
The EPA ban on DDT only covered the United States. The EPA doesn't have the authority to make a worldwide ban. DDT is still in use in other parts of the world to combat malaria. The US gets around 1500 cases of malaria every year, but as far as I am aware there are no deaths.
Slashdot Mirror
An "artist" once got a government grant for photographing a cross in a jar of urine.
You are referring to Piss Christ. It was actually a very striking image, even if you didn't know the story of the piece. It generated a lot of public debate on the nature of art, religion and censorship. It was of such public interest that it was exhibited in galleries all around the world.
By all the criteria listed above, it was a highly successful work of art. I don't think the USB idea is in the same category. It is one of those art pieces that is a social experiment rather than a pretty picture. While it might get some attention in art circles, it is more likely to be used/abused by the technology crowd who are not really known for thinking outside the box.
So if he'd used a megaphone and said to their faces they wouldn't have been able to charge him?
No, they would just charge him under a different law, such as disturbing the peace. They have thousands of laws, so in most cases the police can find something with which to charge you if they put their minds to it.
...it's just another example of how free-speech laws have diverged from today's technology.
How do you figure that? He was successfully convicted under the current laws when using new technology. It seems to me that the law coped quite happily with new technology. Your problem appears to be if he had used old technology.
I very much doubt that the Greens will vote for this. The Liberal/National coalition will support the idea, but will be compelled to vote against it just to annoy the Labor government (although once it gets publicly linked to those kiddy-porn loving, WMD-owning, union-member, terrorist boat-people then that might give the Coalition the excuse to vote for it).
MS pretty much did very little consumer computing.
What about Windows 95 & 98? They were the operating systems targeted towards consumers while business was given Windows NT. Microsoft also did software like Microsoft Money (which was not a business tool), Microsoft Works, and Encarta encyclopedia. And don't forget Microsoft Bob! Or maybe we should forget this.
You know how lots of people keep claiming that PC gaming is dying? Well, that is because PC gaming used to be huge. I maintain that the single reason why PCs had such phenomenal success in the gaming markets during the 90s and early 00s was Microsoft's DirectX, which standardized the APIs to eliminate the need for different versions of games made for different graphics cards (like 3DFX or TNT cards). It simplified the crappy setups that had to be done for each soundcard and made it easier to make new gaming devices like joysticks, steering wheels etc. The success they had with this lead to Microsoft's Games for Windows branding that encouraged ease of install and minimum feature set.
Microsoft always had their eye on the consumer market.
You are ten years too late. Here is a brief history.
Microsoft's problem was they wanted to keep the same Windows user interface on their Tablets (which was too fiddly) and they used the pen for input. Writing into computers never took the public's imagination. I prefer it though. My old PalmPilot was an amazing superior device for entering text than my iPhone. It was faster, more accurate and you could write large amounts of text without having to look at the screen. And it didn't take up most of the screen like the iPhone.
Oops, I have got sidetracked walking down memory lane.
Why would anyone ever need to carry a laptop AND a tablet?
I would imagine that the tablet would get used mostly as an ebook reader so their can carry all their textbooks in one unit. Students will be handwriting less as they type all their work onto their computers, thus replacing their notebooks. It really doesn't seem that difficult to imagine that they would want to have their textbook and notebook on their desks at the same time.
If it wasn't useful to be able to see two displays at once, then we wouldn't have computers that support multiple monitors. This is just the same thing in a portable form.
I was initially against the idea of kids having to lug around laptop computers (especially the early adopter schools who did it before small netbooks). However, when I think back to my school days, and how heavy my bag was when I carried all my textbooks around then it seems that tablets and netbooks would be a much lighter alternative.
I wonder if people using the term "deniers" will ever stop setting up strawman and accept that people are questioning the causes of climate change, not whether the climate actually changes. Someone can criticise AGW theories without also saying that the world is ever unchanging and will always be so.
Oh my god, you are still going on about the term "deniers". Move on! Now I think about it, I don't think I have ever seen you write a post that actually criticises the AGW science. You always seem to be going on about how skeptics are not deniers. Interesting.
There are plenty of people out there who do deny global warming. To find an example, the first place that I look is the right wing columnist of some influence here in Australia. Was I surprised that his latest blog on this topic has moved from his usual line of "the earth is cooling" to "it's to expensive to stop it" arguments. Maybe he is warming to the idea that it is warming.
In any case, have a look at his followers on that blog entry. You cannot deny that they are denying global warming.
We can rebuild him, we have the technology...
(too soon?)
No, too late!
Well, since we've established that the "rumor" about optionally-installed frameworks is NOT a rumor, what the fuck else would I have been talking about, except his *speculation* and unsubstantiated 'what-if's' which he was clearly hoping to astroturf with?
No, we didn't establish that it wasn't a rumor, I did and only AFTER you submitted your post. You only claimed to have read the developer docs AFTER I posted a link to it. You used the same terminology as the OP but later claimed that it referred to part if the post where it really didn't apply.
Finally you refer to Mr Coward's unsubstantiated claims but you have not backed up your claims either. Metamatic asked for the source that shows Apple comments on this matter. You claim the the OP was an astroturfer, but you seem hell bent on doing everything you can to quell any speculation on Apple's direction for the Mac.
My contention is that this is a first step towards a final outcome. Your argument is that it can't be that because it is currently not like the final outcome. You claim I ignore the other avenues of installing software and the anti trust regulation of blocking software from outside the app store, but the scenario I posted explicitly says how they can gradually change their system to avoid anti trust laws. And to quell customer outrage, Apple can always rely on people like you.
The making shit up was specifically directed at:
how long until Mac OS users find themselves in that same "walled garden"?
Oh, please! Your full sentence was "Care to identify a source for this rumor, or are you just making shit up as you go?". The original poster started with "Rumor has it that the new Mac OS App Store forbids relying on optionally-installed frameworks".
Are you really saying that within one sentence you went from asking about the original poster's opening phrase to his final question/speculation? If so, you were linking two separate things together as if they were one concept.
You can't really expect us to believe this, or are you not wearing pants right now?
We could take a hint from Apple themselves, who have said that it's "one" way of getting software on the Mac.
Apple would never admit to any long term strategy, even if it were not controversial. There would be antitrust problems if Apple tried to ban certain software from their OS. However, they can implement an app store and then only allow access to some new features of their OS to apps from their store. Then they can make the app store the most obvious way to search for software. Eventually, software that was not aquired from the app store will be deemed to be legacy software and for security reasons there will be more restrictions placed on it. They could set up a application approval process so boxed software could be certified to allow it to act like it came from the app store.
So am I "making shit up"? Absolutely! This is all speculation based on the way all companies are beginning to move with their software. Operating systems, applications and games are all becoming locked down vehicles for selling downloadable content and online services. It is the way of the future, and the only way to make it work is to remove the openness that we have enjoyed in the past.
So the app store will be filled with high quality apps designed for the exclusively for the mac and this bad how? Cross part form apps are a joke.
Ah yes. The old "I don't want it so it should be banned" argument.
It is true that some cross platform and ported programs can be bad because they don't follow the user interface of the platform on which they are currently running. This isn't resticted to what we are discussing here, but includes apps on the Mac that contain Windowisms (where is the menu supposed to go again?), Windows software with Macisms (Apple themselves are the worst at this), and PC games that have a console gaming interface (what, no mouse support?). And then there are the Java apps that don't look right on ANY platform!
However, there are also some cross platform and ported software that DO get it right. And better features trumps a dodgy user interface too. I don't care if you want to avoid these applications, just don't deny other people the right to use the software that they want. If you want to keep up user interface standards in the app store, then do that. But blanket bans on Java and Flash programs are not about that, because it is possible that you can write software using those systems that look like Mac apps.
Why as a user would I care about cross platform? I use one computer.
I didn't realise that the new app store was being written just for you. How selfish can you be?
So let's put it this way. The less reliance you have on single platform applications, the more choice you have next time you want to buy a new computer. It gives you a way to change platforms in a piecemeal fashion.
Cross platform is just developer speak for I'm lazy.
You know it takes more work to do this properly than just to target one platform.
Yes, ive seen the guidelines
Huh? If you had seen the guidelines then why did you accuse the Anonymous Coward of "making shit up" about the optionally-installed frameworks?
Nothing says you can't include your own interpreters in your app bundle
Impractical for Java, but possible for Flash. It does dissuade developers from going down that path though. And Apple have a history of changing the rules for their app stores. I wouldn't put it past them to put a blanket ban on any Flash application in the future.
Does anybody actually use the flash browser plugin to build desktop applications?
I have seen it used for games and installers for some Windows software. I don't do gaming on the Mac, so I don't know if it gets used there. I have done it on Windows and not realised a game was written using Flash at the beginning. They don't have to sit in browser windows.
Nothing precludes you from installing java, flash, and your own app via means other than the app store. If you want to work outside the guidelines, then you lose a distribution channel, and that is all.
That is correct for now. Who knows how much more the OS will get locked down. Also, look at the iPhone. How popular are the apps that aren't available in the app store?
First, an Australian wouldn't call the car involved an SUV, but rather a 4WD (4 wheel drive).
Secondly, it doesn't seem like an amazing story. They saw some spectators were in the way, so they tried to quickly move it all and they had problems doing this. The only real concerns that I had with the operation was lack of direction given to the spectators as to where they should go to stay out of harm's way and the campaign manager not being organised enough to know the emergency services number in Australia. No, it is not 911. It is also not what they said it was in the NASA report "0". It is in fact 000 or 112 if you are using a mobile (cell) phone.
Finally, what is with the trolling in the summary about video evidence being destroyed. That has nothing to do with this story.
So every app that is downloaded from the App store is guaranteed to run on an out of the box mac or a clean install of the OS and this is a bad thing?
That is not the reason for doing this, because until the recent policy changes to Java and Flash on the Mac, applications written using either of those technologies would have worked on a clean install of the OS. If Apple were so worried about it then they didn't need to remove them from the base install.
The real reason is to remove cross platform programs from the App Store. This is helpful for two reasons. It keeps a consistent user interface for applications on the App Store and it differentiates the programs on the Mac compared to other platforms. If most of the programs were just Linux ports then why not just use Linux on cheaper hardware. Apple want to lock both users and developers into their platform.
In the past, a company who wanted to get that sort of lock-in had to embrace, extend and extinguish. Now they just funnel the applications through their distribution method to have control over what can be run on their platforms.
Care to identify a source for this rumor, or are you just making shit up as you go?
Apple, Java, and the App Store . The same clause would cover Flash now it is not being installed by default.
If you have a Apple Developer ID you can see the guidelines yourself.
(Replying to self) I see now that the half hour difference noted was due to PAL/NTSC differences. See the VHS tape length table. I also see that there is a difference between the definition of the tape speeds (SP/LP/EP) between PAL and NTSC. How confusing!
The longest readily available tape was the T-120.
I have a stack of VHS tapes sitting behind me now (I am going to transfer some of them to DVD). Most of them are 4 hour tapes, but some of them are 5 hours in length (300 minutes). The 10.5 hours would be using the EP mode to double the length. Maybe they had 15 minutes extra tape to give it the extra 30 minutes to which the GP referred. I've never timed one to see.
However, when the VHS/Beta wars first started Beta could do 60 minutes while VHS recorded 120 minutes. They both kept improving, but VHS always had the superior length (due to the larger cassette size). I believe that the 300 minute tapes appeared long after Beta was dead and buried. The Beta format had superior picture quality at the start, but that was sacrificed to extend the length of their tapes, so they were pretty even once video recorder sales had skyrocketed.
The other major factor in the widespread adoption of VHS was that JVC licenced the format to other manufacturers sooner and for less money than Sony. I remember when I first saw a non-Sony branded Beta recorder. I thought at the time that they were way too late to be doing that.
That was also back when Sun worked with other JVM's, as opposed to suing them out of existence like Oracle is doing.
Huh? The grandparent specifically mentioned that Sun sued Microsoft's Java out of existence!
I said kernel, which is more open than Windows.
And yet you can happily install Windows on an Intel based Mac but not the other way around (without jumping through hoops). The fact that you could see some of the source code didn't help there. And it won't stop Apple from restricting applications to a limited feature set of the OS (if they didn't get installed by their app store).
Apple has had restrictions on what you could do with their OS from the beginning. This new step just expands the restrictions. That is why I replied to you originally. Just because one part of the system is open, doesn't mean the entire OS is open. The kernel might be open source, but when the kernel is locked inside a walled garden then it makes no difference.
Hard to believe everyone's buying the troll. OS X has an open-sourced kernel.
Wow! So you mean I can install it on my PC and run any Mac application? Oh, apparently not. According to wikipedia "Darwin does not include many of the defining elements of Mac OS X, such as the Carbon and Cocoa APIs or the Quartz Compositor and Aqua user interface, and thus cannot run Mac applications."
Further on, it says that "the Darwine project is a port of Wine that allows one to run Microsoft Windows software on Darwin". So this open source kernel of which you speak can run Windows applications, but not OS X applications. I think the original poster's comments still stand.
Microsoft's JVM was awful and incompatible.
It was incompatible (they didn't support Java Native Interfaces and Remote Method Invocation), but it certainly wasn't awful. It was one of the fastest Java implementations at the time.
I'm old enough to remember when Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Access, Publisher, Project, Visio, and whatever else MS is bundling these days as "Office" were simply separate products, which anyone could buy individually.
You still can buy them separately. I was just looking at a pricelist earlier today that showed Word, Excel, Outlook and Access as individual items. If you wanted more than one product then you were much better off buying the cheapest Office package.
Unfortunately, it wasn't until later that OSX proved that breaking away from that legacy and using virtualization as a transition mechanism could work, as computers are sufficiently powerful, these days, to make that an option.
Apple wasn't the first to do this. Microsoft used Virtual DOS Machine for DOS under Windows (including Soundblaster emulation), Windows on Windows for 16 bit Win 3.x apps under 32 bit Windows, and WOW64 for 32 bit apps under 64 bit Windows.
They also had subsystems for POSIX and OS/2 executables. All this (except WOW64) dates back to 1993. These days, the only legacy subsystem in use in the 64 bit version of Windows is WOW64.
Here's the thing about making lots of money...you don't do it accidentally. It is impossible to do so without a lot of drive, a lot of work, and a lot of moral flexibility. Hell, even if you win the lottery, it turns out 80% of lottery winners end up filing for bankruptcy
I disagree that you can't do it accidentally. You still can't discount the idea that he made the system just for use by his fellow Harvard students, and only once it became popular did he realise that he might have stumbled onto a winner. None of us other than the people involved at the time can really say for sure.
But I have no argument with you when you say he is a fucker!
The EPA ban on DDT only covered the United States. The EPA doesn't have the authority to make a worldwide ban. DDT is still in use in other parts of the world to combat malaria. The US gets around 1500 cases of malaria every year, but as far as I am aware there are no deaths.
Your linked article is very misleading.